IDC defines digital transformation (DX) as enterprises' use of 3rd Platform technologies (cloud, mobility, data analytics and social business) to create value and competitive advantage through new offerings, new business models, and new relationships. In addition to gaining critical operational efficiencies, a principal outcome of digital transformation is improved customer experience.A cornerstone of DX is transforming content-centric workflows, especially those related to interactions with customers, as well as other external stakeholders. This article explores a framework for defining content-centric workflows.

IDC defines digital transformation (DX) as enterprises' use of 3rd Platform technologies (cloud, mobility, data analytics and social business) to create value and competitive advantage through new offerings, new business models, and new relationships. In addition to gaining critical operational efficiencies, a principal outcome of digital transformation is improved customer experience. We predict that worldwide spending on DX technologies will grow to nearly $2 trillion in 2019, and that two-thirds of CIOs in the G2000 will put DX at the heart of their corporate strategy.

A cornerstone of DX is transforming content-centric workflows, especially those related to interactions with customers, as well as other external stakeholders (e.g. investors, partners, suppliers). Innovative technologies from both established vendors and new entrants are enabling new approaches to deploying and managing these workflows, offering organizations opportunities to drive competitive differentiation as well as improve bottom line results. It is critical for organizations to consider applying a chunk of that $2 trillion investment towards improved business processes involving customer interactions, many of which are content centric.

So what is content-centric workflow? We define “content” as “collections of paper-based or digital works in any medium or format and “workflow” as the progression of steps that comprise a work process, and create or add value to the organization's activities. Content-centric workflows are dependent on tasks that generate, consume, or otherwise act on content.

IDC research has looked at the benefits of deploying technology to automate and streamline content-centric and document-intensive workflows, with a focus on eliminating paper and connecting disconnected systems. In one study, line of business executives and managers estimated that fully automating their document-driven business processes would yield 36% increase in revenue, 30% cost reduction and 23% reduction in risk. Other studies point to more than a 30% reduction in time spent on document-intensive processes, 30%-40% reduction in errors and 25%-30% productivity increases, depending on the specific functional area and process.

There is increasing awareness of these benefits, both on the buy-side and within the vendor community, as well as an understanding of the role that transformed content-centric workflows can play in furthering the overall digital transformation strategy of the company. But as companies seek solutions, it may become apparent that vendors and suppliers from a number of different software domains are laying claim to this space (and all are talking about digital transformation!)

Not all content-centric workflows are equivalent. They can be manual, technology-enabled or transformed. When we talk about “transformed” workflows, we are talking about the fundamental redesign of content-centric business workflows enabled by digitization and the application of 3rd Platform technologies. The redesign provides new connections and new types of connections, removes the inefficiencies of information silos and disconnected processes, integrating disparate information types and connecting systems and people to the information they need with specific business benefits. It is important to note that simply deploying 3rd platform technologies is not necessarily transformative.

The reality is that content-centric workflow automation is not a market and it is not a single solution (or even group of solutions). While there are core technologies, the required toolset is dependent on the specific business problem(s) being addressed. A new generation of vendors, as well as some established players, are creating content and process platforms or “ecosystems” that support a number of modular applications and/or services. These platforms are frequently architected for the cloud and provide standard APIs and interfaces that enable partners and customers to construct purpose-built best-of-breed solutions.

At the heart of the ecosystem is “content in motion” and the rules-driven workflow engine that is orchestrating that motion. A number of applications provide essential workflow services. Perhaps the most obvious requirement is for some type of content repository to store the “content at rest.” There are a number of possible types of applications that could provide the content repository including (but not limited to) a document management application or cloud-based file synchronization and share solution or an enterprise application, including a CRM application such as Salesforce.

There are several critical characteristics of content-centric workflows that must be taken into account when considering the transformative nature of technology;

It is critical to stress the importance of integration in automating and transforming content-centric workflows, both between the relevant core technologies and between these technologies and other enterprise applications and/or industry systems including productivity and collaboration tools, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), human resources management (HRM), and so forth.

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